


Breaking Free

by fandomgalcentral



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-04-11 17:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19114651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomgalcentral/pseuds/fandomgalcentral
Summary: Includes spoilers from CA:CW, Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame. Read at your own risk!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Includes spoilers from CA:CW, Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame. Read at your own risk!

_“Stop it! For the love of God, stop! You’re hurting him!” You beg, his muffled anguished screams breaking every part of you. You run over to the love of your life as it ends and he’s slowly lowered. His bottom lip quivering in fear. You cup his face, assuring him he is not alone. You face his tormentors._

_“You will NOT touch him again. You’ll have to kill me before he turns back! What did he do to deserve this?” Tears fill your eyes, but you stay strong._

_“He is our strongest assassin, Y/N. He will do as he’s told and he will have no memory of his crimes. That is how this works and you will not stand in our way or we shall dispatch you ourselves.” The agents left after releasing his bonds, his weakened body nearly crumbling to the floor before you catch him and take him to his room._

_His shallow breathing worried you more than you would admit. He did nothing to deserve this. To you, he was James Buchanan Barnes, the man you met during his service back in the 40’s. Now, he was being turned into a monster against his own will. You would not allow it. He began to move and slowly sat up, wincing in slight discomfort. You were right there._

_“What happened?”_

_“They tried to bring it out again. I had to stop it before,” you pause a moment. He felt the Winter Soldier personality start to emerge. He hated it and touched your cheek gently._

_“I know. Thank you.” He whispered as you both share a soft kiss._

_“Y/N, come in. We’re going to need your help.” Cap’s voice came over your com. That couldn’t be good._

_“On my way.”_

_You arrive as the man in front of you revealed himself. Shock ran through you as you look back at Steve. For years he thought his best friend dead as you look back at the soldier in front of you._

_“Bucky?” Steve asked as the man straightened, confused._

_“Who the hell is Bucky?” He approached in a threatening manner._

_“That’s the Winter Soldier, not Bucky.” You said as approached him yourself, keeping Steve, Natasha and Sam back. You weren’t afraid of him. He stopped a couple feet away._

_“Bucky, listen to me, please. This isn’t who you are. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. You’re a former Sergeant ad officer of the 107th Infantry Regiment from World War II. Your best friend is Steve Rogers and you’ve been brainwashed by HYDRA, who’s been using you for terrible things and erasing your-” He grabbed your throat, not longer listening._

_“I AM the Winter Soldier and you will be eliminated!”_

_“Bucky, please… I love you.” you whisper, struggling to breathe. He froze for a moment, releasing you. You fall to the ground, coughing for a few moments as he disappeared._

_“It seemed you had triggered something in him.” Tasha said as you watch, horrified._

_“What’s going on?” You ask as you find Steve and Tony, seeing Bucky in a trance like state. You run over, but are violently rebuffed as Tony caught you._

_“You don’t know why you’re even here.” A voice said. Zemo._

_“Let him go! Don’t hurt him anymore.”_

_“Y/N, he’s done a lot of horrible things, but this one takes the cake. Take a look.”_

_You all walk over to a television and watch as Bucky did the unthinkable and watch as he kills Tony’s parents. Horror washed over you as you look at the man you love, shaking your head in disbelief as tears roll down your cheeks. You can see the regret on his face._

_“Tell me you didn’t.” You whisper, your voice breaking. He doesn’t look at anyone as Tony charged._

_“Tony, don’t! I didn’t know.”_

_“Yes you did.”_

_You gasp as Zemo grabs you in a chokehold and Bucky points his gun at you. You knew he had no control. You accepted your fate at that moment, but he wouldn’t pull the trigger when he was ordered to. At that moment, all hell broke loose as you elbow Zemo in the face, grab Bucky’s hand and run, fending off Tony._

_“Are you sure you want to do this?” You ask as he sat, having revealed about going back into cryostasis. You were frightened as he nodded. You knew this was for the best._

_“I can’t trust my own mind. I remember all of them.” He said sadly. “I don’t know if I’m worth all this to you.”_

_“What you did, wasn’t of your own free will, doll.” You touch his cheek gently._

_“I know. But I did it and I have to live with that.”_

_“I’ll always be by your side, Sarg.” You get a smile out of him as he stands. You tear up, knowing this will be the last time for a while. Tears fall down your face as you kiss him with a deep passion, which he returned wholeheartedly._

_“I love you, Y/N.”_

_“I love you Bucky.”_

A shake wakes you out of your slumber. You slowly wake.  

“Wake up, we’re here.”  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In all flashbacks, the reader will be referred to as She/Her for plot purposes.

_A tear rolled down_ _her_ _cheek as_ _she_ _glanced_ _over at Bucky, afraid of what they_ _were about to_ _do._ _She_ _had a feeling this wouldn’t end well as_ _the memory suppressor was_ _switched on and_ _she_ _scream_ _ed_ _out in agony._ _Bucky had to look away,_ _he_ _r screams more than enough, but they could not break_ _her_ _._ _They would_ ** _not_ ** _break_ _her_ _._  

 _“Stop. Stop!” He finally yelled_ _, once it became too much. He was on the verge of tears, this being the reverse situation of earlier._ _He felt the pain and torment_ _she went_ _through, even when he wasn’t strapped in._ _It was brutal._  

 _He shouldn’t have spoken out._ _The_ _slap_ _across his face_ _silences the room_ _as he fell silent._ _He had no choice now as the torture continued_ _, memories being erased of everyone she_ _once knew. Friends, family; all of them._ _Even him._ _Gone. Soon, the screaming ceases as the trigger words are read aloud_ _._ _All of them feel like a slowing in time as she slowly processed them._ _This is what had become of them after_ _they had fallen from the train in 1945_ _. They had been_ _turned_ _int_ _o_ _the perfect weapons_ _. The perfect, obedient soldiers_ _complying with their masters will. The perfect killing machines._  

 _“Soldier?” Came the final_ _confirmation._  

 _“Ready to comply.” The response. Perfect._ _She was ready_ _._  

 _Bucky knew he couldn’t say a word as the woman he loved, the woman who had been stuck in this hell with him for so many years_ _was gone. Replaced by this empty personality who showed no mercy_ _, no remorse_ _._ _N_ _othing. He knew. It happened to him when it was most convenient._ _They needed her for this new mission_ _otherwise they would have sent her back into_ _cryostasis_ _._  

 _“Place him back in his_ _cryostasis_ _chamber until we need him again._ _We have no need for him now.”_  

 _They fitted her into her new suit._ _The opposite of Bucky’s. He was a restrained animal_ _while_ _she was free. All she needed was a mask to cover her identity_ _. She followed the guard as he led her to where she was to receive her next missio_ _n. She was the more dangerous of the two soldiers and everyone around them knew that she could kill and lose control without warning. So, tread_ _carefully they did. The door shut softly as she sat, the shadow hiding her face, but her eyes_ _remained cold and focused._ _The man_ _slid a_ _manilla_ _folder to her, causing confusion for a brief moment._ _Things like this have happened before between her and this man, but no word was ever spoken. No words could be spoken unless she was ordered to speak. Do not speak unless you are_ _ordered to. She slowly pulled the file towards her and slowly examined its contents_ _as she did many times like a cop studying a case file._  

 _The silence is so thick, a knife couldn’t cut it._  

 _“This new target_ _knows too much. A former HYDRA informant. It seems_ _we have a traitor amongst us. He also has microchips that we need_ _that are_ _essential_ _to our operations._ _I want you to retrieve those microchips and assassinate_ _him. Make it look like an accident._ _Destroy any cameras you see and any evidence you were ever there._ _No one must know or suspect a thing._ _Do you understand your mission?”_  

 _She glanced up at him for a brief second._  

 _No response_ _._  

 _He waited for another heartbeat, finally slamming his hand down against the desk. She could swear she heard the faux wood split a bit from the brutal force._  

 _“I will ask one last time. Do you understand your mission?”_  

 _“Yes sir.”_  

 _That was all he needed to hear._  

 _“You will report back at 0700 hours. I want a full mission report._ _Now leave.”_  

* * *

 

 _She welcomed the darkness. It made her feel safe, protected, lost in her own thoughts. Wait, thoughts?_ _No, she shouldn’t even have a coherent thought, only focus on her mission._ _The tormented face of the man with the metal arm is where her thoughts lay tonight. Not on her mission._ _He had gone against protocol by speaking. He would get what was coming to him._ _She would supervise that like she had before_ _, if they needed her to_ _. She had trained him to be deadly like her_ _. There were times when he wanted to push himself and she wasn’t one to wear down her protégé. The maroon car drove by her_ _, pulling her back_ _to the present_ _._ _Showtime._  

 

 _The car’s jerky movement was enough to alert him_ _, along with the motorcycle’s light shining directly at him through his rearview mirror_ _. The driver was following_ _too closely for his liking as he tried to shake the bike off but it kept coming._ _The chase went on for nearly an hour as the bike seemingly disappeared._  

 _Just when it seems he’s safe, his car jerks violently, making him lose control and crash into a brick wall._ _The sounds of crunching gravel fill his ears as he slowly_ _gets out of the car, hitting the ground in severe pain. His right leg is shattered from the impact, his face bloody from hitting the dashboard_ _and steering wheel. He has nowhere to go. The assailant stalked her prey like_ _a hungry predator. He stared up at her._  

 _“Please don’t hurt me!_ _Whatever this is, please! I have a wife-”_  

 _She had silenced his pleas,_ _grabbing his throat and squeezed. Her eyes as he could see were vacant. Empty hollow_ _orb_ _s. This was his death sentence._  

 _She dropped him, slamming him brutally into the brick wall. Bones snapped and cracked_ _, bringing her a sense of satisfaction_ _. Finally having_ _had_ _enough_ _of the toying about, she brutally beats his face in until it caved into itself_ _, making him nearly impossible to identify. Perfect._  

 _Retrieving the small black case_ _from the middle compartment, she placed it in her sma_ _ll satchel before placing the body in the car. However, how would it look like an accident with his face smashed in?_ _Smirking, she pulled out her revolver which was covered with a silencer and shot him twice in the back of the head._  

 _She turned to all the cameras in the area and shot them out. All the evidence had been taken care of_ _as she jumped back on her bike and took off back to headquarters. Amongst h_ _er return_ _, she placed the small_ _case_ _in front of them, which contained several different microchips. They seem satisfied_ _enough the mission was completed._  

 _“Well done Soldier._ _He’s waiting for you.”_  

 _After cleaning her up,_ _she returned to his office, this time staying standing._  

 _“Mission report.”_  

 _“Target has been eliminated. The_ _microchips have been retrieved.”_  

 _“You made sure no evidence was left over?”_  

 _“Affirmative.”_  

 _“Good. You’re excused. Wipe her.”_  

 _T_ _hey returned her to the memory_ _suppressor, turning on the highest setting. Her screams fill the room as every memory is once again, erased._  

 

* * *

 

 _“This can’t be some sort of coincidence!_ _If it_ ** _is_** _the Winter Soldier, he took what he came for and disappeared without a trace.”_  

 _“It’s not the same Solider we’ve been hunting_ _, sir. The shell casings are not even close to identical to the ones used before.”_  

 _“What the hell does that mean?” He snapped at his forensic technician._  

 _“What I’m implying sir_ _, and take it as you will, is that we’re dealing with not one, but two Winter Soldiers._ _” The tech crossed her arms softly, leaning against the desk of the director._ _The man was beyond stunned._  

 _“You’re telling me, there’s two super soldiers out there killing people?_ _You’re joking right?” He could laugh at the theory._  

 _“Things exist beyond your comprehension_ _since you lack the imagination to believe it, sir.” Her steely gaze held his own. Her neutral tone hinted she was deadly serious._ _A pause. “My point is, our other Soldier has a partner.”_  

 _“Do we know if it’s a male or female?”_  

 _“Does it really matter? They’re a lot more dangerous than the other. I don’t want to imagine what facing both of them together is like.”_ _She replied, her tone still neutral but showed signs of wavering._  

 _“HYDRA was destroyed. There’s no such thing as Winter Soldiers. They’re only ghost stories that_ _either people believe or don’t, Miss Matthews.” He shrugged indifferently. She_ _nodded._  

 _“If there is a second Winter Soldier, we will find them. I can promise you that Mr. Pierce.”_  

* * *

 

You looked at Steve as you come out of your slumber. He helped you up.  

“How long was I out?”  

“Nearly the whole trip. You ready?”  

You nod, It was the first time you were going to see Bucky in 2 years.  

“Stay here.” He squeezed your shoulder for a moment then left. You could hear Bucky’s voice just outside as your heart did flips inside your chest.  

 

“And a semi-stable 100 year old man.” He hugged Steve with a soft smile.  

“How are you Buck?”  

“Not bad. For the end of the world.” He chuckled softly. Steve nodded.  

“I have a surprise for you.” Steve stepped aside as you appear and watch Bucky light up like a Christmas tree. Approaching him, a soft, warm, radiant smile fills your face as you hug him tightly, taking in the scent you’ve missed for so long.  

He has to hold you tight to make sure it wasn’t a dream. It was really you. Not some super soldier. Only you. Steve and the others leave to give you both space. He takes you somewhere private. Both of you can’t speak as he passionately kissed you. Bucky was back.  

“I missed you army brat.” You whispered, a hand on his chest.  

“Missed you, dork.” He teased. 

“How are you feeling?”  

“Oh, like I used to. Granted, the memories are still scattered. Other than that, I’m peachy, even though the world is ending.”  

“Listen Bucky, there’s something I need to tell you.” 

“What is it, Y/N?”  

 

Before you can speak, Sam comes over Bucky’s com.  

“Uh, guys, we’ve got company. We’re gonna need you out here. Now.”  

“Damn.” He muttered. You wouldn’t be able to tell him yet. “Can it wait until this is over?”  

“Yeah. Let’s go kick some alien ass.” You smile, taking his hand and grabbing a gun. A smirk crossed his face.  

“Just like the good old days.” 


End file.
